Your View: Galapagos conference adds to understanding

Tuesday

Jun 18, 2013 at 12:01 AM

I just represented UMass Dartmouth at the World Evolution Summit, San Cristobal Island, Galapagos, Ecuador. The 200-attendee meeting took place June 1-5. It was the third summit organized by University San Francisco of Quito and its Galapagos Institute for the Arts and Sciences. The summit reverberates every four years.

GUILLERMO PAZ-Y-MINO-C

I just represented UMass Dartmouth at the World Evolution Summit, San Cristobal Island, Galapagos, Ecuador. The 200-attendee meeting took place June 1-5. It was the third summit organized by University San Francisco of Quito and its Galapagos Institute for the Arts and Sciences. The summit reverberates every four years.

Both USFQ and GAIAS excelled at managing the event with unique vision and hospitality and at highlighting the scientific relevance of the Galapagos, its role in Charles Darwin's conceptualization of "his theory" of evolution by natural selection, and the importance of this volcanic archipelago as World Heritage.

Under the umbrella "Why Does Evolution Matter?" the summit included five sessions: evolution and society, pre-cellular evolution and the RNA world (RNA is a precursor molecule to DNA, the carrier of genetic coding), behavior and environment, genome, and microbes and diseases.

The summit was publicized by the media worldwide with instant tweeting, video uploading, TV and radio reporters chasing the speakers, and press releases. The Galapagos might be distantly located 600 miles west of the coast of Ecuador, but the summit was constantly "close by" in the news.

I was invited by USFQ and GAIAS to present at the summit my research program at UMass Dartmouth. In my address, I discussed "Evolution, science, pseudo-science and the public's perception of reality." The topic is provocative and it did trigger sharp questions from the audience, dozens of tweets, journalists impatient to get exclusive interviews, and an avalanche of sympathizers with my concerns about the public's low acceptance of evolution worldwide. I contrasted with data the anecdotal perception, even among some of the other speakers, that opposition to evolution is a phenomenon restricted to the United States, and I framed the problem conceptually, subject to scientific inquiry and testing.

During the past five years, my collaborator Dr. Avelina Espinosa (professor at Roger Williams University) and I have documented scientifically the patterns of acceptance of evolution in New England and the attitudes toward science by highly educated audiences. With so many reputable universities, New England is a great "field site" for our studies. We have proposed that the controversy over evolution versus creationism (including all its modern forms: theistic evolution, creation science, young-earth creationism, Intelligent Design, BioLogos) is intrinsic to the incompatibility between scientific rationalism/empiricism and the belief in supernatural causation.

Dr. Espinosa and I have published extensively on the topic and tested quantitatively the "incompatibility hypothesis," which helps us understand the core reason for the controversy of science versus belief. This was the essence of my address, and my colleagues' response, plus that of the audience, were amazingly encouraging. The media went further: "It is time, and important, to say it the way it is," stated Rodolfo Asar, host of the TV program "On Myths and Truths: Frauds in Science," when dialoguing with Dr. Espinosa and me. Rodolfo and his co-host, Maria Eulalia Silva, play a crucial role in educating the public. Their program is featured primetime by Teleamazonas.

What is the incompatibility hypothesis, how do you test it? asked Rodolfo. I explained that acceptance of evolution and scientific rationalism is characterized by three main factors: the level of an individual's understanding of science, her/his familiarity with the process of evolution, and her/his personal belief convictions. In all our studies with the New England professors, educators of prospective teachers, and college students, the single negatively associated variable with acceptance of evolution is the degree of religiosity. And to test it, we have compared such trends with the views of non-believers, who do not possess the academic credentials of the New England scholars, but their levels of understanding the foundations of science and evolution are comparable to the highly educated professors. "Evolution is true regardless of our awareness of it," I concluded.

I must confess that the World Evolution Summit in the Galapagos shall remain as one of my most memorable experiences.

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